On Change.org, the site where you can submit ideas and/or vote on ideas and then Obama has to do them … or at least listen … a college student named Griffin Jeffrey has suggested that we create nationalliy required science standards.

National standards on the teaching of Evolution and the origins of life, decided on and created by top scientists from significant scientific organizations, should direct curricula of all schools nationwide, overriding any state laws on the subjects.

FYI the second draft of the Minnesota science standards have just come online for public feedback. The last committee meeting is at the end of January, so this is likely the last chance to make any recommendations that can be incorporated. Personally, I still think there is room for improvement in the life sciences. However, my greatest concern is some of the language in the “nature of science” section, which I think opens a doorway for creationism (ie intelligent design).

Greg, you’ve been tricked. The change.org site is not affiliated with President-elect Obama in any way. (His site is change.gov, and there is no indication that anyone affiliated with change.org has anything whatsoever to do with Obama.) I wrote in support of the proposal you are supporting here in your blog post, but as I look around at change.org I see that there are an amazing number of posts there by total flakes–as witnessed by supporters of mandatory Esperanto lessons in secondary schools in the United States outnumbering supporters of science education standards that are based on the science of biological evolution.

Yes, change.gov really is the legitimate governmental website of the Obama transition team, which apparently gets some federal resources after the election. By contrast, change.org is just a skin with a user-registered domain name for a commercial website for gathering opinions. (I learned this on Hacker News.) If readers of Greg Laden’s Blog and Pharyngula (where I learned about this thread on Greg’s site) and sites of similar interest want to send eyeballs there, that might thin out the flakiness there, but it might not be seen by any more people in the Obama administration than a new original post right here on Greg Laden’s Blog.

Lorax, I think the language you’re referring to in the MN standards (NOS strand where it says “not limited to …” and then lists several theories) is a section that could not be touched by the new committee. It was transferred verbatim from the current standards. The exact politics on why this occurred are very fuzzy, if not hidden.

The #1 idea in Education is currently “Introduce Esperanto as a foreign language subject in schools”. Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. Learning Klingon would be more practical. And it’s not on Change.gov it’s on Change.org.

I’m not in favor of nationalizing the curriculum in any subject. I’d actually like to see state standards abolished too. Teachers ought to be empowered to do their jobs as they deem best without micromanagement from bureaucrats.

While the sentiment is understandable, students are getting a poor science education… or worse, they’re being deliberately deceived by creationists. This is a huge problem, and to date national standards is the only remotely viable solution being bandied.

Of course, the best solution would be for science teachers and school boards to correct the problem themselves, but as that isn’t happening anytime soon, what other options are there?

I know students could be taught science in a better way, but the flat out generalization that American students get a bad science education is troubling to me. Full disclosure, I am a science teacher. When you say this, what are you basing this on? I found the Urban Institutes study on science education very interesting. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411562_Salzman_Science.pdf

Dawn: good point, but there is something you must take into account. No matter how right wingish the party in charge of the white house gets, there is still a Supreme Court and there is still a relately well educated lawyerly Senate. But at the local level … and with this absurd fetish that all local is always better for all things, “local” means any one of the thousands of school districts … absolutely anything can happen.

Even at the state level we see absurdities that simply can’t happen at the national level.

About this blog

The science is mostly climate change, life science, evolution, and science education. The science policy and politics is mostly about climate change and the evolution-creationism false controversy. The technology is mostly about Linux, regular normal person computer use, kids programming, and now and then, household items.

As an Anthropologist and Africanist, I often write about those topics as well.

Usually, I write about one or two topics for a while then shift to something different. This is not systematic, and has to do with context and external forces such as: Is this a presidential election year? Are we having an El Nino? Is there a fight going on somewhere about teaching creationism in a public school? Did I just get a cool new robot toy? Like that.

So, if you don't find the most recent few posts interesting, have a look at the topics below. But, of course, chances are you got here with a Google search and you'll never read this "about" thing.